Nassir Little

[doordoor123]

It’s an average draft. Not too strong or weak, but a lack of point guards and too many good shooting guards and power forwards.

[Coeur]

He sucked to me. The only thing he did that impressed me is his closeout speed. He is so quick. Other than his tools and gifts, he is a 2nd rounder. But his tools and gifts will make him a lottery pick. He's not close to NBA ready and hes not close to having a position. He is a poor mans Jae Crowder with a lot better tools and physical gifts. System fit and development is critical for him

He looked like an A athlete with a D BBIQ. Those, historically, have not translated well to the pros.

Sent from my SM-G925T using RealGM mobile app

In the role he is being tasked with at UNC the eye test is very out of focus as to what this kid is capable of on the court in a more optimized stock building role. That being said
he is not a good outside shooter , mostly an elite athlete straight line driver with solid defensive awareness but Cam Johnson is one of the best in college basketball and thus is ahead of him in the rotation and rebounds just as good as Nas.
He will play small ball 4 in the NBA where his bad outside shooting won't cancel out the good parts of his skill set and force him to come off the bench, but that's just it, Roy Williams does not use him to his strengths, he uses him in a way that gives the team the best chance to win in his system that requires all players except the 5 to be outside shooters. When Luke Maye is at the 5 they can live with Nas on the perimeter or guarding the 4's because his lack of offense there doesn't cause a major detriment to the flow of the offense, and his defensive ability is more than what Roy gets from others.

You can’t project this guy as an nba 4. If you do you are saying his career is a failure. For him to come anywhere close to his ceiling he needs to be a wing player.

[Stillwater]

He looked like an A athlete with a D BBIQ. Those, historically, have not translated well to the pros.

Sent from my SM-G925T using RealGM mobile app

In the role he is being tasked with at UNC the eye test is very out of focus as to what this kid is capable of on the court in a more optimized stock building role. That being said
he is not a good outside shooter , mostly an elite athlete straight line driver with solid defensive awareness but Cam Johnson is one of the best in college basketball and thus is ahead of him in the rotation and rebounds just as good as Nas.
He will play small ball 4 in the NBA where his bad outside shooting won't cancel out the good parts of his skill set and force him to come off the bench, but that's just it, Roy Williams does not use him to his strengths, he uses him in a way that gives the team the best chance to win in his system that requires all players except the 5 to be outside shooters. When Luke Maye is at the 5 they can live with Nas on the perimeter or guarding the 4's because his lack of offense there doesn't cause a major detriment to the flow of the offense, and his defensive ability is more than what Roy gets from others.

You can’t project this guy as an nba 4. If you do you are saying his career is a failure. For him to come anywhere close to his ceiling he needs to be a wing player.

Of course I can in a position less league talking about a player who is a ridiculously gifted athlete...

[Hoopz Afrik]

Nassir has definitely improved in the last month of the season and looked great over the weekend. Very raw and doesn't really know how to play, but in this **** draft his athletic ability alone might be enough to keep him in the top 10.

a) strong draft. Not elite but far from weak.
b) he knows how to play. 21-10 PER 40 and that's despite not playing with starters and being last option on offense. He's been very solid on D and contributes even though he gets sporadic/inconsistent minutes and touches.
c) of course he's a top 10 talent. The only thing holding Little back is Roy Williams. I've been saying for months that a strong tournament will get him taken high and he's already had that with games still yet to play. Decision makers are swayed by athleticism displayed in workouts, measurements and tournament performances. He'll have all three in his favor.

a. disagree completely. Awful draft, one of the worst in a while.
b. he only started playing well in the final part of the regular season. I don't assign any value to PER40 numbers or any other hypothetical guess/stat
c. Roy Williams did not hold Little back, Little's own lack of knowledge on how to play held him back. As he got better and smarter he got more playing time. That's how playing time works.

Agreed on part of B and all of C.....completely disagree about this being an awful draft. Value all across the board.

[shakes0]

a) strong draft. Not elite but far from weak.
b) he knows how to play. 21-10 PER 40 and that's despite not playing with starters and being last option on offense. He's been very solid on D and contributes even though he gets sporadic/inconsistent minutes and touches.
c) of course he's a top 10 talent. The only thing holding Little back is Roy Williams. I've been saying for months that a strong tournament will get him taken high and he's already had that with games still yet to play. Decision makers are swayed by athleticism displayed in workouts, measurements and tournament performances. He'll have all three in his favor.

a. disagree completely. Awful draft, one of the worst in a while.
b. he only started playing well in the final part of the regular season. I don't assign any value to PER40 numbers or any other hypothetical guess/stat
c. Roy Williams did not hold Little back, Little's own lack of knowledge on how to play held him back. As he got better and smarter he got more playing time. That's how playing time works.

Agreed on part of B and all of C.....completely disagree about this being an awful draft. Value all across the board.

There's very little value in this draft starting after pick #3. The rest of the lottery is extremely weak.

[clyde21]

a. disagree completely. Awful draft, one of the worst in a while.
b. he only started playing well in the final part of the regular season. I don't assign any value to PER40 numbers or any other hypothetical guess/stat
c. Roy Williams did not hold Little back, Little's own lack of knowledge on how to play held him back. As he got better and smarter he got more playing time. That's how playing time works.

Agreed on part of B and all of C.....completely disagree about this being an awful draft. Value all across the board.

There's very little value in this draft starting after pick #3. The rest of the lottery is extremely weak.

you have it backwards bro...it's the top 5-6 that's weak (sans Zion), especially in comparison to '18, but the value after that is strong. the depth in this class is insanely underrated.

[Coeur]

In the role he is being tasked with at UNC the eye test is very out of focus as to what this kid is capable of on the court in a more optimized stock building role. That being said
he is not a good outside shooter , mostly an elite athlete straight line driver with solid defensive awareness but Cam Johnson is one of the best in college basketball and thus is ahead of him in the rotation and rebounds just as good as Nas.
He will play small ball 4 in the NBA where his bad outside shooting won't cancel out the good parts of his skill set and force him to come off the bench, but that's just it, Roy Williams does not use him to his strengths, he uses him in a way that gives the team the best chance to win in his system that requires all players except the 5 to be outside shooters. When Luke Maye is at the 5 they can live with Nas on the perimeter or guarding the 4's because his lack of offense there doesn't cause a major detriment to the flow of the offense, and his defensive ability is more than what Roy gets from others.

You can’t project this guy as an nba 4. If you do you are saying his career is a failure. For him to come anywhere close to his ceiling he needs to be a wing player.

Of course I can in a position less league talking about a player who is a ridiculously gifted athlete...

Ok you can. But these teams will still look at the reality. And the reality is that he’s not with a top pick if he can only play pf.

A team will draft him high for his potential as a 3. Or they won’t pick him if they think he won’t develop

[clyde21]

4s today are wings more or less anyways.

[Stillwater]

You can’t project this guy as an nba 4. If you do you are saying his career is a failure. For him to come anywhere close to his ceiling he needs to be a wing player.

Of course I can in a position less league talking about a player who is a ridiculously gifted athlete...

Ok you can. But these teams will still look at the reality. And the reality is that he’s not with a top pick if he can only play pf.

A team will draft him high for his potential as a 3. Or they won’t pick him if they think he won’t develop

I don't agree teams will look at him negative because he would be more impactful at the 3 or even the 2 if his game was more advanced I think they will look at him positive because he has upside to play those positions and already is capable of playing at a high level defensively at 1-4. He will get drafted higher than you think imo.
I agree nobody will draft him to strictly to play small ball 4 or 5 but he can play both those rolls day 1
regardless of if it seems teams wouldn't value that skill set in the lottery I think they will look at it as a positive adding the potential at other positions in more traditional line ups.

[sipclip]

a. disagree completely. Awful draft, one of the worst in a while.
b. he only started playing well in the final part of the regular season. I don't assign any value to PER40 numbers or any other hypothetical guess/stat
c. Roy Williams did not hold Little back, Little's own lack of knowledge on how to play held him back. As he got better and smarter he got more playing time. That's how playing time works.

Agreed on part of B and all of C.....completely disagree about this being an awful draft. Value all across the board.

There's very little value in this draft starting after pick #3. The rest of the lottery is extremely weak.

Such a horrible take. This is looking like it is going to be a deep draft with a lot of solid roleplayers.

Sent from my SM-G960U using RealGM mobile app

[GimmeDat]

I would say this draft is deep enough, but there's a disappointing lack of value in that mid-lottery in particular. When we're talking about Culver, Hunter, some say Garland in top 5 discussions, that kinda sucks.

[Stillwater]

Some think he should stay in college another year, since the results didn't match the hype...and will go mid-late 1st ,but those same people are suggesting Reddish should only fall to 6 or 7 instead of be in the top 3 which is laughable given they were both over hyped and Reddish has had a lot more minutes to prove himself but has failed.
I actually have more confidence in Little putting the work in to justify a lottery pick than I do Cam.

[King Ken]

Read on Twitter

Currently #20 on my big board and seen to move back, I can see him in the range of 7-25.

His ceiling is similar the Josh Smith of the world and he is not a PDS guy. But there will be a team who will see his measurements, athletic ability, talent, explosiveness and work ethic and see a player who has an extremely low bust rate for the NBA. He is no longer a top 5 pick but he is still a lottery pick for some.

This draft will be interesting. Like 2013, watch for many of the top guys to get pushed down outside of the top 4 in my book. Teams will work these kids out and realize, there is a gap and have to adjust. This will be one hard year for the NBA draft.

[King Ken]

I would say this draft is deep enough, but there's a disappointing lack of value in that mid-lottery in particular. When we're talking about Culver, Hunter, some say Garland in top 5 discussions, that kinda sucks.

It really sucks honestly especially when last year you had WCJ, Bamba, etc

[Stillwater]

I would say this draft is deep enough, but there's a disappointing lack of value in that mid-lottery in particular. When we're talking about Culver, Hunter, some say Garland in top 5 discussions, that kinda sucks.

IDK I used to think so, and if you go simply by the big boards that have been rotting with the Reddish's and Little's still in the mid lottery , I would agree. But there is a lot of value to be had in upper classman some of whom are proving to have similar ceilings if not higher than the 5 star 1 and dones that fell short of expectations.
I mean I look at Washington,Clarke,Hunter,Kabengele,Culver,Alexander-Walker,Hachimura & the longshot Okpala along with freshman like White,Hayes,Bol,Garland,K.Porter,and long shots King and Reid as all being high ceiling prospects and could get their name called earlier than expected as well as offer solid value.
I also think some others like I.Brazdeikis,J.Lecque,J. Nowell,J.Nwora,C.Bassey,M.Oni,T.Herro,Sekou,Goga,Tillie,Claxton and Fernando could all have a case made as a lottery pick in this draft.

[doordoor123]

I would say this draft is deep enough, but there's a disappointing lack of value in that mid-lottery in particular. When we're talking about Culver, Hunter, some say Garland in top 5 discussions, that kinda sucks.

I agree, but I also think there are guys that are getting underrated that can slip into those spots come combine/workouts. There are some players I like in the lottery that aren’t being considered there at all just because they were on sub-par programs (Miye Oni/Charles Bassey) coming from overseas (Sekou Doumbouya/Goga Bitadize), coming off an injury (Louis King/Killian Tillie) or because people are failing to see the difference between a raw college player versus a functional NBA player (Rui Hachimura/Talen Horton-Tucker). And by that I mean the NBA is different, more running (helps guys like Donovan Mitchell/John Collins/Terry Rozier), fluid post players can often be more successful (Antetokounmpo/Kuzma/Jarrett Allen are in that group), and guys get more open stand-still shots (because superstars often drag defenders inward or toward them and every team pretty much has a star like that — helping guys like Jaylen Brown, Collin Sexton and Otto Porter). There are also a lot of guys people are over thinking (PJ Washington/Bruno Fernando), older players that might make better NBA players (Eric Paschal/Mfiondu Kabengele). All the players I’ve mentioned I see as possible lottery picks with Eric Paschal maybe being the exception, but he’s a good defender with great size and some of the best hops of the class so I can be talked into it.

[clyde21]

I would say this draft is deep enough, but there's a disappointing lack of value in that mid-lottery in particular. When we're talking about Culver, Hunter, some say Garland in top 5 discussions, that kinda sucks.

in comparison to what last year?

[doordoor123]

I would say this draft is deep enough, but there's a disappointing lack of value in that mid-lottery in particular. When we're talking about Culver, Hunter, some say Garland in top 5 discussions, that kinda sucks.

in comparison to what last year?

Compared to the past two years this is a weak top of the draft, but the past two years have been strong drafts. This one has good depth in terms of roleplayers, but really weak for guards and really weak at the top. Having said that, this draft could look better in a few years, just not a lot of players that can dribble/shoot and has size. But a lot of players that might develop given the right resources.

[clyde21]

almost every top 10 is gonna pale in comparison to last year's top 10...that was a historic class at the top.

that's why I think people are hating on the top of this class because you're going from an all-timer to an average top-5 or top-10 so that drop off is gonna be a bit of a buzzkill, but when you compare this year's top 10 to '16 or '15 it's much better and I actually like it better than '17 although that's more of a discussion.

how I'd rank the top10s the last 5 years:

18

19
17

15

16

maybe we can open up a new thread on this and do a deeper dive.

[ThunderBolt]

Read on Twitter

Currently #20 on my big board and seen to move back, I can see him in the range of 7-25.

His ceiling is similar the Josh Smith of the world and he is not a PDS guy. But there will be a team who will see his measurements, athletic ability, talent, explosiveness and work ethic and see a player who has an extremely low bust rate for the NBA. He is no longer a top 5 pick but he is still a lottery pick for some.

Welp, Sam Presti is your guy.